[Mezzie]

Depends on what I'm looking for. If it's something small (under like 20 bucks for me, substitute whatever for your comfort level), I don't even bother. I just go to Target and pick up the 2nd or 3rd cheapest whatever.

Now if it's a bigger ticket item, it gets dicey, because then the best strategy, in my experience, has been to determine what about said item really matters to you and then find a group of people who share that and ask their opinion. The problem with this is that those people have the best information, but also very exacting standards and aren't very sympathetic to arguments like "But I don't HAVE hundreds of dollars for a coffee maker."

Honestly, more and more in the past few years consumer products and services in the world has just been like a race to 'get something past me' and I've just started making my own stuff, buying vintage, or borrowing because I'm tired of being sold crap.

[h0l0cube]

Australians have www.choice.com.au that use a subscription model to monetize rigorous product comparisons for big ticket items. I'm not sure what the options are in other countries. Obviously there are special purpose publications like DPReview and Anandtech

[Mezzie]

Consumer Reports is the big one here.

I find things like CR or choice really good if your needs align with the standard consumer's.

One example is I'd probably recommend you look at office chair recs from them if you were a male between the 20th and 80th percentile in height (or a female in the male ranges) and weight who only uses the computer for work. If you were like me, a woman who's 5'3" with the legs of somebody 5'1" who sits at the computer for hours, those recommendations wouldn't work. (They also wouldn't work for Yao Ming).